Ultra violence

As many of you are aware I’m really working on this self-betterment thing. I don’t watch the news, I look for the silver lining, I listen to opposing opinions before soundly declaring them to be kife. I subscribe to the fact that people are inherently good and rational and that the media sensationalizes all things negative in order to keep us scared and confused. And then someone goes and gets shot on Granville and 16th.
This threw me for a loop for a couple of reasons: a) it’s not too far from where I live and b) I had been in the same location about 24 hours before.
I’ve seen some pretty shitty things in my life. I’ve seen children with limbs that had been broken and not re-set correctly selling roses and Chiclets in Mexico. I’ve seen a man so intoxicated in a bar that he leaned over, threw up on the floor, and then continued drinking. I’ve witnessed people clear out their children’s post secondary education fund to go on a cocaine induced binge. Our neighbors used to make their dog sleep outside in the snow, giving him only a board leaning against the fence as shelter. I’ve seen a bouncer take a semi-conscious man out of a nightclub, ram his head into a brass pole and then drop him on the ground in front of a line-up of people. But I’ve never seen a man killed, and in reading a couple of people's eyewitness accounts of what happened, I’m not sure I can say how I would react if I did see this most ultimate violence.
I wasn’t there. I didn’t see what happened and I understand that eyewitness accounts are often wildly varied because of the speed and emotion and shock of what’s happening. One description, though, relates to the police shooting this man on Granville Street in the back – twice – when he was already on the ground.
Given my liberal upbringing and my tendency to imbibe in things that perhaps Stephen Harper (the man whose idea of a great photo op is to shake hands with his elementary school aged son as a gesture of warmth and paternal affection) would prefer I didn’t, I have oft had issues with authority. I understand cops have a job to do. I sometimes wonder how quickly mankind would revert to its most basic and animalistic instincts (think the Dark Ages) should lawlessness abound. I have never personally been hassled by a police officer, and when I’ve had to deal with them they’ve always been friendly to me. I do know too that the call of duty beckons to a certain type of individual. Perhaps to someone who can’t wait to fire a handgun, for whom wielding power over others is some kind of turn on. It happens in the military. It happens when men rape women. I know this duality has influenced my perception of what might have happened on Monday night when a man was killed, so I actually won’t speak to that.
What I will speak to are some of the comments on the Globe and Mail site that went up after news of this was first published. Several people seemed quick to defend the police. Discussions were bandied about as to the appropriate level of force to be levied against a perpetrator. Others referred to the man (who had apparently been swinging a chain and had hit two police officers in the head with it, knocking one unconscious) as scum and inferred it was good riddance that he had been removed from our society. People wondered was a chain a “lethal weapon” or not? Parts of the dialogue were totally inane.
One person made a comment to the effect that this man was someone’s child, and that we did not know the series of events in his life that led to him trying to attack some police officers on a Monday night on Granville street.
Isn’t that odd? Isn’t that scary? One person comes up with this thought! I wasn’t on some right wing, Texan/Calgarian, gun-toting site: it was the Globe and Mail! It syncs up nicely given that I’ve just finished “A Clockwork Orange”, a book about ultra violence and how to “cure” it. I don’t know. There are several different tangents I could go off on right now, but I won’t. I don’t know the full story. I don’t know that we will ever be given unfettered access to the entire story. The whole thing, from this man’s death to the surmising, chest thumping comments left on the website yesterday are tragic.
At 8am I got on the bus and said good morning to my bus driver, who said good morning back to me. It’s a beautiful, sunny day. I’m looking forward to the clinic tonight, even if we have to do eight hills. If someone proposes beer and burgers after, I will go and endeavor to contribute more than sixteen words to the conversation.
Yessir. Trying to find a witty quip to end this post on a more positive note, but am coming up empty handed.